If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/travel/traveling-climate-change.html
Source: By Andy Newman, The New York Times.
Excerpt: The glaciers are melting, the coral reefs are dying, Miami Beach is slowly going under. Quick, says a voice in your head, go see them before they disappear! You are evil, says another voice. For you are hastening their destruction. To a lot of people who like to travel, these are morally bewildering times. ...But it turns out there are ways to quantify your impact on the planet, at least roughly. In 2016, two climatologists published a paper [https://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6313/747.full] in the prestigious journal Science showing a direct relationship between carbon emissions and the melting of Arctic sea ice. ...Each additional metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent — your share of the emissions on a cross-country flight one-way from New York to Los Angeles — shrinks the summer sea ice cover by 3 square meters, or 32 square feet, the authors, Dirk Notz and Julienne Stroeve, found. ...Ships? Even worse. ...Before we go, we will buy enough offsets to capture the annual methane emanations of a dozen cows [http://www.openthefuture.com/cheeseburger_CF.html] — that’s several times what is needed to balance out the carbon effects of our flights. May they help keep a polar bear afloat....
Source: By Andy Newman, The New York Times.
Excerpt: The glaciers are melting, the coral reefs are dying, Miami Beach is slowly going under. Quick, says a voice in your head, go see them before they disappear! You are evil, says another voice. For you are hastening their destruction. To a lot of people who like to travel, these are morally bewildering times. ...But it turns out there are ways to quantify your impact on the planet, at least roughly. In 2016, two climatologists published a paper [https://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6313/747.full] in the prestigious journal Science showing a direct relationship between carbon emissions and the melting of Arctic sea ice. ...Each additional metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent — your share of the emissions on a cross-country flight one-way from New York to Los Angeles — shrinks the summer sea ice cover by 3 square meters, or 32 square feet, the authors, Dirk Notz and Julienne Stroeve, found. ...Ships? Even worse. ...Before we go, we will buy enough offsets to capture the annual methane emanations of a dozen cows [http://www.openthefuture.com/cheeseburger_CF.html] — that’s several times what is needed to balance out the carbon effects of our flights. May they help keep a polar bear afloat....